DEFINITIONS OF BUG USED IN THIS BLOG -
1. Slang verb or noun: concern or annoy (most common use of the word in this blog),
2. Proper noun: best dog I know,
3. Proper noun: name of dog in COMING FLU and MURDER: A NEW WAY TO LOSE WEIGHT,
4. Noun: computer error or flaw, and
5. Noun: an insect

Friday, March 20, 2015

I just came home
from the Tucson Festival of Books — a two-day extravaganza of book stalls, sun,
talks, and over 1000,000 people.It is a fun event BUT being there doesn’t mean you raised consciousness
of readers on your books or sold books. You have to work at it.

How do you “work” a book fair?

I’m certainly no
expert but these tips might be helpful.

1) If you have a following already, publicize you’ll be at the book fair on your blog and website. If
you don’t have a following and are worried burglars will read your website and
visit your home while you’re away, you may decide to do less publicity.

Prepare handouts.You can spend a lot of money on full color handouts on
expensive heavy paper. They aren’t necessarily more effective sales tools than
a colorful, well-designed ½ page flier or bookmark.

The print on your
handouts should be large enough so that most can read it without their reading
glasses.

Besides a photo
of your cover and a short blurb, include info on where your books (paper and
Kindle versions) can be purchased after the fair. Cite your website. I find many visitors at book
fairs don’t want to take twenty pounds of books home and seem to be interested
increasingly in Kindle books.

Carry a few
handouts with you when you leave your booth. You never know when you might
strike up a conversation with someone who’ll find your books interesting.

Try to interact with all passers-by and
draw visitors into your booth.
Those visitors, who look the most distracted, can turn into buyers after you
ask them a question (What do you like to read?), if you show them something
from your stock that fits their answer.

Don’t line up
your tables as barricades. Place tables so you welcome people into your booth.

Rent a booth with other writers so you
have a variety of books to sell.This
means you and your colleagues will have to know a bit about each other’s books
but it makes easier to take breaks. Besides, it more fun.

One woman told
me she sold homemade beanbags along with her books at outdoor books fairs. The
beanbags served to keep fliers and books in place and were cute and cheap.

Try to learn something new. You might learn a better way to display
your books, see more effective handouts, or meet a potential publisher,
proofreader, or illustrator. You might even find a book you like.

Remember, your
success at a book fair can be judged in at several ways:

l The number of books you sold.

l What
you learned. How much you enjoyed interacting with other writers and publishers.

l The
increased number of your books sold afterwards (probably through Amazon) or increased
hits on your website afterwards.

Monday, March 2, 2015

Are these activities
advertisements? Blogs
and websites, reviews of others’ books, and talks on book-related topics.

According
to Michael Turney, advertising and publicity are two very different
communication tools, even though both employ the mass media as a vehicle for
reaching large audiences… Advertising buys its way into the media… Publicity is
presented by the media because it's "newsworthy." (Online Readings in
Public Relations at www.nku.edu/~turney/prclass/readings/ads.html).

So
the activities listed at the start of this blog are not advertisements, but if
done right and you’re lucky, they increase sales.

Can I use advertising tools
to my advantage?

I
thought if I understood the psychology of advertising, I might do a better job
at publicizing my novels. I’m guessing (if you’re still reading), you might
think so, too.

Emotional & bright visual

Experts
agree #emotions sell products. About
three-quarters of the time, researchers found surrounding a product with other things shoppers liked, sold products
better than advertising the desirable traits of the product (Dempsey & Mitchell, Journal of Consumer Research
[Dec 4, 2010] Vol. 37). I
understand the concept as it applies to shoes and beer, but what about books?

Perhaps,
it means as authors we should emphasize the humor, romance, and thrills in our
novels. That’s why I named on medical mystery Murder: A New Way to Lose Weight rather than Death of a Diet Doctor. I thought the former title was more
humorous and consumers like the words “lose weight” better than “diet.”

Humorous title

Experts
think #ads should appeal to as many
senses as possible. This makes sense to authors. We know book covers and
websites (visual cues) are important. That's why I chose a brightly colored image for the cover of Ignore the Pain. I thought it would arouse emotion (shock) and was easy to remember, but I'm not sure readers found the photo as interesting as I did.

I think it is less clear how to provide sound, smell, and taste clues for novels. I’m
wondering if I should serve brownies at my next book signing. They appeal to
the sense of smell and taste and arouse favorable emotions in most of us. What
do you think? Do you think any bookstore owner would allow it?

Don’t be discouraged if all
your promotions don’t work.
Experts estimate as much as seventy-five per cent of all advertisements aren’t
effective (http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1904/01/the-psychology-of-advertising/303465). My interpretation of this information is: Try. Try again.

Nest
week I’ll have more ideas gleaned from experts on the psychology of advertising.

About Me

J.L. Greger, likes to try new things. Her latest book is The Good Old Days? A Collection of Stories not a thriller, like the novels in her her Science Traveler Thriller & Mystery series: Murder: A Way to Lose Weight (winner of 2016 Public Safety Writers [PSWA] contest , I Saw You in Beirut, Malignancy (winner of 2015 PSWA contest), Ignore the Pain, and Coming Flu. She includes bits of science in all her writing because she was a biological scientist at the University of Wsconsin-Madison for many years.